The US firm is launching a new guide for the family offices sector, a sign of how banks view such organisations as important clients to cultivate.

(An earlier version of this item appeared in Family Wealth Report, sister news service to this one.)

Morgan Stanley has set out a new “single family office best practices” report, highlighting how large US banks continue to view this sector as an important business growth area. 

The report comes from Morgan Stanley Family Office Resources, a unit that is part of the Family Office Resources Signature Access platform at the New York-listed firm. 

The global pandemic has shone a harsh spotlight on family offices’ need for clear and usable information, the report said.

A number of major banks, such as UBS, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Wells Fargo and JP Morgan, have targeted family offices and external wealth managers, as important clients to cultivate, whether in the form of providing outsourced investments and technology, custody, help with capital-raising or access to deal-flow. Citi Private Bank, for example, has issued a range of white papers on family office matters in recent years. 

“There is no simple formula to follow when creating or maintaining a single family office. In fact, some family offices are formed explicitly because the existing service models don’t sufficiently address the family’s unique needs,” Valerie Wong Fountain, head of Signature Access and Single Family Office Advisory, Morgan Stanley Family Office Resources, said.

The guide considers subjects such as “Mission and Purpose”; “Setup and Operations”; “Asset Management”; “Financial Administration”; “Wealth Advisory” and ”Lifestyle Advisory and Concierge”.